Anonymous
by mermaidpotato
Summary: One thing led to another, which eventually, somehow, led to Carly standing in front of Freddie's locker, stuffing a piece of ripped and folded notebook paper in through the crevice.
1. Prelude

A/N: Don't expect me to be writing this fandom a lot. It was a floating fancy. I saw the iSaved Your Life episode, and couldn't manage to track down the extended version anywhere, so I wrote this in my frustration at that coupled with the lack of good iCarly fics to placate me. Placed sometime after iSaved Your Life (and, from later references, after iSam's Mom as well), if anyone at all cares about references or timelines. Probably not, but it's habit.

This has more material to be written, so I'll probably at least try to write it into a multi-chap story, but when the next one will be posted is a question mark at the moment. I've never been good with schedules, so I'm not even gonna try. Sorry in advanced for the cliche. Again, floating fancy.

Disclaimer: iCarly is not mine. As with a lot of the fanfiction I write, the characters and basis belong to Nickelodeon. Congrats to them for still having some quality programming every once in a while.

* * *

Hey Freddie,  
I don't know how you get away with being single. If they made more of you, it wouldn't be too hard selling them off as ready-to-go boyfriends. Speaking of which, how do you get off being so great? Seriously, take a break from being amazing once in a while and give the rest of us a chance.

_It started off mostly out of boredom._

Hey Freddie,  
You know what? It's a good thing you don't have a girlfriend. You deserve better than the girls at this school. When you find someone who's finally worth your time, you'd better snatch her up. They don't make extras of those any more than they make extras of you. And no, that's not a cheap pick-up line. You deserve better than me too, so no worries.

_One letter, scrawled on the back of some ages-old doodle._

Hey Freddie,  
Say you could make your own girlfriend. Go to one of those build-your-own-bunny places and stuff yourself one, then bring her to life with some kind of magic known only to geeks. What would she be like? I know what the first response is gonna be, but that's not what I want to hear. And probably not for the reason you're thinking. Really, if you could custom-order a girlfriend specifically for you, what would she be like? Computer-savvy, right? And cute… and not taller than you. Why does that bug guys so much? Though I guess I would be a little freaked out if my boyfriend was shorter than me. I don't know why I want to know so much, because it shouldn't matter. Like I said, I already know your gut response. That should be enough, but you make me second-guess everything. Hey, full circle back to the I'm-not-good-enough bit. Gotta love that.

_It was shoved in the back of a boring school notebook, where no one would ever think to look, and slowly, it grew._

Freddie,  
If I'm gonna keep writing these, I need to come up with a different way to open it. The "Hey Freddie" thing is a bit repetitive when the letters are so short. This'll work for now I guess, but I can't think of much else to put. I don't want to start it off with "Dear Freddie," that sounds so full of it. I don't say "Dear Freddie" when I'm talking to you; I say "Hey." Besides, who starts a love letter off with "dear?" Oops! I didn't just write that, did I? Oh, that's not what theses are supposed to be! But I guess they're not really supposed to be at all, so what can you do?

_Partially, it was because I wasn't entirely sure what he'd meant by "a while"-I mean, "once I'm out of this cast" was clear enough, but it was the "and this whole hero thing blows over" that I was hung up on._

Hola Freddie,  
I've decided that if I make it any more personal, it would be too obvious who it was. Not that I plan on delivering these, but if I'm breaking down and calling them love letters, then I don't want my name attached to it. Yours, I'm apparently okay with. Really, what would a love letter without a recipient be? Hardly a love letter. More like an editorial, maybe. And only really, really desperate, really, really lonely people write those. I'm not there yet, and here's hoping I won't get there.

_On the outside, everything had gone back to normal; no more hero Freddie, just our good old tech producer Fredward._

Hi Freddie,  
I keep thinking that I should have some mushy gushy stuff to write down here. That that's what love's supposed to be about. Something about your piercing brown eyes or how much I want to run my fingers through your hair. I'll admit that maybe I do, but that's honestly more of a friendly thing. I mean, you're handsome, sure. You've grown up a lot, and I'm not gonna pretend that I haven't noticed (at least not here in these strange little love letters), but is it okay if I think of other things first? If I like you for the things that no one ever seems to notice? I wonder some days; how many people have ever let you know just how amazing you are? Regardless, you need to hear it more.

_But, to me, he was still a hero._

Hey Freddie,  
You know, I turned down a boy today who asked me out. He's the kind that, a year ago, I would have been itching to date. I think I'm setting my sights too high; all I could think about was that he wasn't you. He's probably a little closer to what I deserve, though. I'm not even strong enough to ask you when I know you'd say yes. I'm making both of us suffer… at least, I think. But maybe you've already gotten over me?

_I kept thinking, and I started to wonder if maybe he'd been wrong._

Dirkenshnoff Freddie,  
These are getting way too depressing. I don't know why they're doing that. I'm not a depressed person. iCarly is my life; I should be a comedy person. I used to be. I'd blame you, but it's not your fault. I'd blame Mexicans, but you wouldn't get that and it would just sound racist. It's probably all my own fault, but that doesn't go along well with my whole non-depressing plan. So I guess I'll just take a page out of Sam's book and blame Gibby.

_At first it was shock and guilt and gratitude and a mess of other hormonal teenaged things._

Yo Freddie,  
We're reading Shakespeare in English. And you know what? This romance stuff is crap. Why is it that everyone always winds up dying because they love someone? Couldn't he just write one love story with chocolate and flowers and dancing to whatever song is playing in the elevator? That's how I'd want ours to go, if I wasn't too busy feeling guilty.

_When it all boiled down to it, though, that wasn't really what was left._

Freddie,  
I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're a life-saver. Really, thank you. Thank you so much. This isn't the kind of thing that should make me get the warm fuzzies, but it is. I guess it's just good to know that, however much I don't deserve it, you're willing to jump out in front of buses for me. Even if it wasn't nearly that big of a deal today, it just reminded me. You would.

_It was just what had made me realize it._

Senor Benson,  
Sorry. In Spanish class. I'm just thinking it's a shame you had to take German. It's cute when you try to roll your R's. Come to think of it, that's probably why you're in German. You never could get much farther than trying. At least there's something you can't do. Now that you've outgrown the wimpy nerdy phase (the wimpy part, at least), your downfalls are a bit farther between. So there's one thing I could do for you. I could teach you to roll your R's.

_Freddie cared about me so much-girlfriend or best friend-that he risked his life to save mine._

Hi Freddie,  
I think I think too much. That's probably why I need so much help in school; I think too much for my own good. Too much, too fast, at all the wrong times. Lately, I keep thinking about you. The silliest little things catch me off guard at the strangest of moments. Someone will mention iCarly and I'll think about the face you always use on camera, like you're trying to look cool. Or we'll be reading a book in class that I saw you reading a week ago, and I'll start picturing you as one of the characters. Randomly. It probably sounds like I'm obsessive, but I'm not. I only write to you when I'm thinking of you, after all. And I don't write as often as you probably think. It's just something I started to stop all the excess thinking. I can't tell if it's made it better or worse. At the least, I guess it's put my thoughts to use.

_Those aren't the kind of guys that they sell a dime a dozen._

Freddie,  
I'm being such a coward. I wish theses things would come out when I opened my mouth instead of just when I'm trying to take notes in Physics. What is it about centripetal force that makes my pencil write "Freddie"? And don't you dare bring Freud into this. …See? This is why I should be talking instead of writing. This awkward pause would never happen if it were a conversation. But I keep writing these, not just to you, but like I'd actually send them to you.

_Which, eventually, is how I found myself stuffing a piece of ripped and folded notebook paper into the crevice around Freddie's locker._


	2. Week 1

A/N: I'm going to put this out there now and say that I know Carly acts kinda OOC. She's not really a writer, so the notes are going to sound kinda awkward and a little bit forced, but I partially intend them that way. The rest of it, I hope, sounds much more Carly-like. (In other words, it was just too cute of an idea for me to pass up. XP) I'm aware that it's rough, but that's because it's nothing like what I normally write. Fanfiction is what I use to explore my writing, so it's all gonna be a little bit strange. (That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate critique)

Ignoring my ramblings, I don't really have much else to say. Sorry, maybe. Though I suppose, if you're still reading this, you enjoy it for whatever reason. It's beyond me. Hope you manage to find something redeeming.

* * *

Dear Freddie,  
It's funny. I promised myself I'd never start one of these off with "Dear." Though I probably shouldn't reference letters I never sent. I just wanted to let you know that you're a great guy. Everyone around the school loves you, even if a lot of them don't show it. We've seen in action that iCarly wouldn't exist without you, and I can't imagine that there are many people that wouldn't have more personal things to thank you for. I know I do. Just keep on being awesome, okay? Don't let a certain blonde get you down.

The first letter I actually sent, I rewrote twice because of how many times I kept erasing. I was careful not to put in anything that would indicate who I was, and not to make it look too much like a love letter.

I then promptly went about the rest of my day, trying to act like I wasn't waiting for him to say something about it. It was an iCarly day, so there was plenty for me to busy myself with.

"Sam, I've told you at least twenty times that you can't give ham to a Rabbi." I rolled my eyes as I shut my locker. Twisting the lock shut again, I leaned against the thin wall of metal that separated me from an avalanche of teen junk.

"Why not? Everyone loves ham!" Sam closed her own, and when I saw her, I understood the slight muffle her words had taken on. A piece of bacon hung halfway out of her mouth, clenched between her teeth as she balanced a stack of books as thick as her head. It was impossible to say where it had come from-recently or originally-but I'd long since given up asking anyways. It was just Sam's never-ending supply. I'm fairly sure that, by this point, everyone was getting her subscriptions to the Bacon of the Month club for Christmas.

"Because Rabbi's aren't allowed to eat ham! It's in bad taste!"

"Hey, my meats do not taste anything less than beautiful," Sam corrected innocently, ripping the piece of bacon out of her mouth to punctuate her point.

"No. I mean it's offensive. It's just not nice." Pausing for a moment and waiting for my curiosity to overtake my common sense as it always did, I eventually opened my mouth to ask, "Why do you want to get the Rabbi a present for Hanukah, anyways? You're not Jewish, and you don't celebrate Hanukah!"

Polishing off the last of the slice of bacon and starting to amble away from the lockers backwards, Sam grimaced a bit. "Because my mom's dating him now, but I hit him with a paintball when Spencer and I were in that assassin thing. He thinks I'm some kind of demon child, and… well, my mom really likes him."

"Aww," I smiled, following her lead, "does that mean you and your mom are still on decent terms?"

"Yeah," Sam said airily, "and also, with Christmas coming up, the closer I am to her good side, the better."

"Knew it," I sighed, shaking my head, "too good to be true without an ulterior motive."

"What ulterior motive?" Freddie asked casually as he crossed the hall to join us, "What's Sam plotting? Should I be scared?"

"No," I rolled my eyes in Sam's direction, "Sam's just getting ham for a Rabbi."

Freddie's eyes scrunched up in confusion for a moment. "But… Rabbis can't…"

"I know, I know! Rabbi's are too good to eat ham!" Sam practically growled, "What in the world do you get someone who thinks pigs are the world's problem?"

There was a pause where Freddie and I shared a glance, both smiling our crooked not-supposed-to-be-laughing smiles. "I don't know," Freddie finally replied, turning away from our moment and back to Sam, "how about _not_ meat?"

"Oh, first it's no pigs, and now it's no meat. I am _never_ becoming a rabbi."

"Yeah," Freddie and I agreed, "You'd be a horrible Rabbi."

"It just wouldn't work."

The bell finally rang, and Freddie waved goodbye before he dashed off to German, leaving me and Sam to amble along to Spanish. "Is he a fan of iCarly?" I asked as the halls slowly started to clear.

"No, I don't think so." Sam watched her foot as it scuffed the floor, half grimacing and half pouting. "He's never mentioned it, at least, and I've talked about it in front of him a few times."

I shrugged as we ducked into Spanish class took our seats in the middle of the classroom. Foreign words snaked across my paper, and I willed my pencil not to add the heading that I knew it wanted to. Not until he got the note. Not until he said something.

The rest of the day passed normally, everyone winding up at my house like they didn't have any of their own. I plopped down in a beanbag with my Civics homework plastered across my knee while Freddie ran all the technical checks. Sam, meanwhile, paced back and forth and idly while she ran down her mental list of possible Hanukah gifts.

"What about cheese? The man's gotta like cheese. Who doesn't?" By this point, her pacing was the tiniest bit frenzied, and she was wearing the food-related part of the list (which was most of it) down.

"I've got a cousin who's allergic to cheese," Freddie offered from his position cleaning off the lens.

Sam let loose an irritated grunt, and I set my pencil down to send her a sympathetic glance. "Look, Sam… maybe you should try to stay away from food. Like… I don't know, some glow in the dark socks, or maybe a gift certificate to Lots-o-Books."

Sam paused for a minute, considering. "That could work… Could Socko hook me up?"

"I'll talk to Spencer about it." I laughed, about to turn back to the Constitution and all of it's numerous amendments (why couldn't the people who made our country just make up their minds?) when Freddie hooked the camera back in place and clapped his hands.

"Okay, guys. Save it for later, we need to run the rehearsal."

Rolling my eyes, I shoved all of my school stuff off to the side and stood up. Freddie walked over to the laptop and clicked a few settings while Sam and I tossed quips back and forth. We came up with our usual last-possible-minute introduction and then the rest of practice ran smoothly.

When Freddie picked up the camera and changed the settings one last time, it was just like any other Wednesday. When he started the countdown, the letter was the farthest thing from my mind. It stayed that way through the halfway-improvised scene where we used bacon as finger puppets and while we barreled through another messing with Lewbert involving seventeen pounds of chocolate pudding (If he were anyone else, I'd almost feel sorry for the guy, and I said as much). For half a second during the dramatic painting of some of Spencer's sculptures, I thought about how stupid the whole thing was, but it was out of my mind as soon as it had popped in. It wasn't until after six little water balloons found their way out the window via slingshot that it really came back around.

"Alright, folks!" I began to end with a smile, "Thanks for watching tonight, and-"

"And we've got one last special surprise for everyone!" Sam cut in, pushing her way into the camera's view ahead of me. It was far from the first time she'd done it, and it really shouldn't still be catching me off guard. Regardless, it does. Every time. As usual, there was the little trill of fear that sprung up; these little messages rarely meant good news for me.

Squishing it down, I caught her gaze quickly, an obvious question in my eye, and she just brushed it off. "Everyone remembers our favorite geek wad tech producer Fredward, right?" In a broad, sweeping motion, she indicated Freddie's direction. He spun the camera around, looking just as confused as I felt, and waved slightly.

"Um… hey. Sam, what's going on?"

"Oh, just hold on, Fredward. Point that thing back at mama, why don't ya?" Sam smiled far too innocently not to be up to something, the camera focusing back on her. "Today, I found something out about our nerdy little Fredward."

"What?" I asked, now amused as well as curious. Freddie echoed my question with more than a little panic in his voice, stepping back towards the kill switch.

"Well, it seems that he's managed to get himself a secret admirer." Sam dug into her pocket and revealed the worn piece of notebook paper with a flourish.

"What?" I asked, genuinely shocked for half a second before I realized whose note she was holding. I scrambled to keep the surprise on my face, with just a touch of offense. I turned from Sam to Freddie, hands gravitating to my hips. "Why would you tell Sam before you told me?"

"No!" Freddie protested, backing up almost unconsciously. "I didn't _tell_ her. She took the note from me while I was looking at it last period. It's no big deal, anyways. She's not a _secret admirer_." He made a show of rolling his eyes, and Sam didn't buy it for a second.

"Oh. So you know who it is, then?"

Quickly, Freddie came back with another "No!" He gave a frustrated sigh, and then continued, "That's not what I meant. This is the only note. That hardly makes a secret admirer… Carly, read it. Out loud."

Hesitating for only a moment, I gave both Sam and Freddie the look, then grabbed the note from Sam unceremoniously. I glanced over it quickly, trying not to act like I already knew exactly what it said, and then began "'Dear Freddie,'" before I dropped it from my field of vision, acting incredulous. "Really? Who still starts letters off with 'dear'?"

Sam elbowed me. "Just keep reading."

With yet another roll of the eyes, I complied. "'It's funny. I promised myself I'd never start one of these off with 'dear.' Though I probably shouldn't reference letters I never sent…' Either of you following this?"

"Shut up and read."

"That's not possible, Sam."

"Then just stop it with the commentary."

Still reluctant and showing it every bit if not more, I turned my eyes back to my own familiar handwriting, still surprised Sam hadn't recognized it. "'I just wanted to let you know that you're a great guy. Everyone around the school loves you, even if a lot of them don't show it. We've seen in action that iCarly wouldn't exist without you, and I can't imagine that there are many people that wouldn't have more personal things to thank you for. I know I do. Just keep on being awesome, okay? Don't let a certain blonde get you down.' And… that's it. No signature." I extended the piece of paper to return it to Freddie, then shrugged at Sam. "I think Freddie's right, Sam. That letter could have been from anyone."

"Well, not anyone…" Freddie amended hesitantly, and Sam nodded enthusiastically along.

"They've got to be from our school, and watch iCarly."

"I meant," I amended, my voice thick with sarcastic annoyance, "that it doesn't have to be a secret admirer. It just sounded like an encouragement note. Nothing to get worked up over."

There were a few moments of unusual silence before Freddie finally brought everyone back to reality. "Hey, guys. We're still rolling."

"Oh, right!" I shook my head, physically trying to clear it, and then forced a smile on my face. "Sorry about the interruption there," a sidelong glare at Sam was her cue to start talking.

"What can you do?" She exaggerated a shrug, already back in her iCarly voice. "Anyways, remember that we do accept donations in the form of meat and non-US currency!"

"For what?"

"Does meat really need a reason?"

Switching tracts with an exaggerated shrug of my own, I started the long string of various goodbyes that generally ended off our web cast, punctuated with one "don't really send us meat" once Sam joined in, until Freddie finally announced that we were clear.

Immediately, Sam strode over to where Freddie was wrapping everything up and began to pester him. Sighing deeply, I took a moment to cringe at my own stupidity before I had to leave it behind and focused on mediating. After all, it hadn't really changed much of anything.

"Guys… Guys!"


End file.
